European Council

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I thank the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement made yesterday by the Prime Minister in the other place on the conclusions of the European summit last week. Europe is indeed an important issue for this country and we know how vital it is for our economy, for trade and for jobs. But we on this side of the House recognise that it is a difficult issue for the Benches opposite because not only are they divided on the issue itself, they are doubly divided. On Europe, the Liberal Democrats are fundamentally opposed to the formal position of the Conservative Party, as the debates in this House showed so clearly when we took through the Bill to put in place the Lisbon treaty. The Liberal Democrats stood shoulder to shoulder with this party on the Bill and on Europe, to the fury of the Conservative Party, now their partners in government. However, the splitting does not end there because Europe is still a fault line within the Conservative Party itself—a party which can combine the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, at one end of the spectrum on Europe, and in the other House the Member for Rushcliffe, the right honourable Ken Clarke, at the other end of the spectrum. It is, indeed, a remarkable containment, even if the party has to keep them in separate Houses of Parliament to do it.

I pay tribute to the skill of the Prime Minister in keeping the lid on these divisions by the simple stratagem of not talking about the issue of Europe at all. Strange, then, that the Prime Minister should so carelessly abandon this tactic in the way he dealt with last week’s European Council, especially on the question of the EU budget. Far from remaining silent he talked. Indeed, he talked and he talked and he talked. He talked about how outrageous some proposals were and about what needed to be done—clearly much to the puzzlement of other European leaders. They had not realised that they were there to debate the EU budget, principally because they, like the Prime Minster, knew that it had all been settled in August and that therefore there was nothing else to talk about. However, that did not stop the Prime Minister because he mostly talked about the historic triumph he had managed to bring about.

When people talk quite as much as the Prime Minister did about what he, and he alone, had achieved, it tends to make most people count the political spoons. We, on these Benches, do not think that the Prime Minister came back from the summit with quite as full a canteen of cutlery as he implied. Can the Leader of the House confirm that, rather than his being instrumental in holding down the EU Council to a budget increase of 2.9 per cent as the Prime Minister in effect claimed, the Council of Ministers had agreed this increase back in August? I ask the Leader of the House to address this question specifically. Can he confirm that at that time some 20 EU countries voted for that level of increase and that the letter on the budget, about which the Prime Minister showed off so fulsomely, was signed by fewer countries than had voted for the budget in August—13 in all as opposed to the original 20—and that the Prime Minister lost support rather than gained it? Can the Leader of the House confirm that, having voted to oppose the increase of 2.9 per cent in August, the Prime Minister now supports an increase in the EU budget of 2.9 per cent and that this is a clear U-turn? Many in this House, including those on the Benches opposite, know that in trying to talk up as his own achievement something that had already been long agreed, the Prime Minister was transparently and inadequately attempting to appease the Eurosceptic right in the Conservative Party. They know, too, that such posturing not only fools no one but is ultimately damaging to Britain’s credibility in Europe.

I turn now to the question of treaty amendments. The Conservative Party tried in vain during the passage of the Lisbon treaty Bill to attack this party on the issue of a referendum. However much it tries to scream and shout about it, this party’s position on a referendum was clear: we said that we would hold a referendum on a new constitution for the EU and that, because Lisbon was a further treaty like Amsterdam and Maastricht, it was not a constitution and so it was appropriate for Parliament to consider it just as it had done with Amsterdam and Maastricht. Indeed, when we debated this matter and voted on it, a majority in this House understood that point clearly.

In response, the Conservative Party made two promises: it promised to hold a referendum on Lisbon and it promised to hold a referendum if there were, as it likes to put it, any further transfers of power from Britain to Brussels. We know that the Conservative Party has already explicitly broken its promise on Lisbon because there was no referendum. We now see the Conservative Government—I am sorry, the coalition Government—apparently in the process of breaking that second promise by walking away from the pledge to hold a referendum on any so-called transfer of powers. Can the Leader of the House confirm that proposals for change to the Lisbon treaty are likely? Can he confirm that proposals for treaty change will flow from the conclusions of this summit? Can he confirm that if such proposals are made for treaty change, the Government will put these proposals to a referendum of the British people? Can he confirm that if it does not, the Conservative Party will indeed have broken the second promise it has made to the British people on these issues?

I suspect that the EU leaders who attended last week’s summit would be astonished at these being the issues debated in your Lordships' House today and the other place yesterday. They will have thought that they were at a very different summit, one which was about economic governance, sustainable growth and climate change. All are hugely important issues which were almost entirely eclipsed by the rhetoric which the Prime Minister indulged in. I recognise that the Leader of the House touched on them in the Statement repeated today, but they were not the issues about which the Prime Minister was boasting last week.

On the first issue, economic governance, we welcome sensible proposals for greater co-operation to secure economic stability across Europe. In principle, we also welcome the idea of putting in place clear arrangements for providing help to eurozone countries which get into difficulty, rather than relying on a more informal, ad hoc approach. However, we also believe that the right balance needs to be struck between the need for stability and the need for growth in the eurozone.

With regard to the forthcoming G20 summit in Seoul, on the prospects for the world economy, the Leader of the House will know that an increase in trade accounts for almost half the growth that the Office for Budgetary Responsibility forecasts for the UK next year. We shall see whether that prediction is maintained when the OBR brings forward its updated forecast on 29 November. In advance of that, will the Leader inform the House what discussions were had at the European Council on uncertainty in the world economy and what part Europe can play in helping ensure that economic demand is sustained?

Thirdly, on the forthcoming Cancun conference on climate change, the prospects do not look bright for completing the unfinished work of the Copenhagen conference. Will the Leader set out in greater detail than was given in the cursory mention of Cancun in the Statement what the Government will do to advance a deal on finance, which is both a precondition of progress and an essential objective for Cancun?

For the Benches opposite, Europe remains an awkward and embarrassing issue in different ways and for different reasons. But that awkwardness cannot be brushed aside by the bluster which the Prime Minister so unfortunately engaged in last week. Everyone in this country whose job, contract or business depends on Europe knows how important an issue Europe is. It is too important for the political posturing that we saw from the Government last week. We need sensible discussion and proper engagement on Europe from this Government for the benefit of Britain and of Europe. On these Benches, we all hope that the posture on Europe that the Prime Minister tried to strike last week will be a singular folly rather than a sustained strategy. Once is more than enough. The parties opposite cannot heal their divisions on Europe, but no one will be convinced by their attempts to camouflage them. Distraction is not a strategy; proper engagement is. We look to the Government in future to pursue it.